It Begins with a Story: Artists, Writers, and Periodicals in Asia

Organised by Asia Art Archive in collaboration with The Department of Fine Arts at The University of Hong Kong, this symposium explores how periodicals have fostered conversations around art and emergent forms of visuality in twentieth-century Asia.

Periodicals are exemplary for how they bring technologies of word, image, and print together with notions of aesthetics, practices of viewing, and circuits of dissemination. The adage “modernism began in the magazines” is certainly true for Asia, where print media has been instrumental in taking debates, discourses, and images of art to wide audiences.

Periodicals have been more than just platforms or sites for artistic experimentation and exhibition; they have themselves shaped and staged them. In so doing, periodicals have played a defining role in forming diverse publics for art in Asia.

The papers presented in the symposium explore periodicals in relation to emerging practices that cut across genres, new nomenclatures and aesthetic propositions, verbal and visual manifestos, the production of alternative publics and communities for art, and other topics.

AAA presents a series of talks, discussions, and exhibitions leading up to the symposium. All events are free and open to the public. Register Now

Symposium

Date: 11–13 Jan 2018Venue: The University of Hong KongLanguage: Cantonese, English and Mandarin, with simultaneous interpretation provided

10:30am | War and Alternative ModernitiesTransformational in Form, Socialist in Content: An Exploration of the Aesthetics and Content of Early Soviet Turkic Periodicals—Michael ERDMAN, Curator, Turkish and Turkic Collections, The British Library

The Trespass of Non-design: The Avant-Garde Experiments of Designer and Its Surroundings —CHIANG Poshin, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Tainan National University of the Arts

The Sekai-sei of Circulation: The Catalytic “World Relevance” of the Avant-garde Japanese Calligraphy Periodical Bokubi (1951–1960) —Naomi KUROMIYA, PhD Candidate, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York

The Journal of Art and Ideas: A Genealogy of Transition —Sophia POWERS, PhD in Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

Moderator: John TAIN, Head of Research, Asia Art Archive

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Naomi Kuromiya | The Sekai-sei of Circulation: The Catalytic “World Relevance” of the Avant-garde Japanese Calligraphy Periodical Bokubi (1951–1960)

The artist, scholar, and editor Verina Gfader speaks about the Italian avant-garde magazine movement of the 1960s to 1970s; the fictions around the sci-fi fanzine Cheap Truth; and the transmission of knowledge through the archive and paper-making.

Asia Art Archive hosts three exhibitions that explore art periodicals in Asia as tools for criticism, historical research, travel writing, and fiction. AAA team members initiated each of these presentations.

Li Xianting’s Contribution to Art Journals in China (1978–2001) | Anthony Yung with Guo HongweiSomewhere Along the Line | Karthik K. G. in collaboration with Sneha RagavanFantasy of a Dialogue | Nicole Yuen Lai with work by Au Sow-Yee